Every week, NPRI President Sharon Rossie writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.

A new study released this week confirms something many of you — if not all of you — already know:

Freedom makes people happy.

In fact, freedom is more important to a person’s happiness than that person’s age, income or even employment status, according to the study by the Fraser Institute, a Canadian think tank. Using data from the World Values Survey, European Values Studies and the think tank’s own Economic Freedom of the World Annual Report, researchers found that the world’s most economically free countries are also its happiest.

Besides the inherent value of living in a country that is economically free, the researchers found that individuals who believe they have more control over their own lives — something that accompanies economic freedom — are more satisfied.

This study validates what we at NPRI, and all of you who are friends of the Institute, work so hard for on a daily basis. Whether through keeping the public informed of how government is spending money through TransparentNevada.com; studying the impact of collective bargaining on government budgets; analyzing the health of Nevada’s public employee pension system; or sharing the value of parental choice in education, we believe the more freedom people have to live their lives as they wish, the happier and more prosperous they will be.

Earlier this month, Nevada students and businesses gained more freedom as scholarship organizations began participating in the Nevada Educational Choice Scholarship program. As explained by NPRI’s Executive Vice President, Victor Joecks, this new school choice and business tax-credit program — though somewhat overshadowed by Nevada ESAs — is sure to make Nevada students, families, business owners and communities happier.

Under the new program, created by AB165, businesses are now able to receive dollar-for-dollar tax credits for funding scholarships that will assist qualifying low-income students in attending private schools that will help nurture them into the educated, capable leaders Nevada needs to have a more successful tomorrow.

Announced this week is that early applications for Nevada’s ESA program — which will allow any student who has been in public school at least 100 days immediately prior to applying for an ESA to receive at least $5,100 a year for non-public school education — are now available. The early applications, according to the Nevada Treasurer, will allow students who spent last year in public school to move into private or other non-public classrooms at the beginning of the upcoming school year and still be eligible to receive ESA monies in 2016.

The United States, according to the Heritage Foundation’s 2015 Index of Economic Freedom, ranks number 12 when it comes to economic freedom. What really disturbs me is that Canada, the country I was born and raised in, has surpassed the United States for several years.

One of the reasons I’m most excited to be back at NPRI is to help change that, and Nevada’s school choice programs are key in those efforts.

As Nevada families begin to use these new choice programs and other states witness our successes, I know we can continue to push the needle forward and make the U.S. a freer and happier place to live.

Every week, NPRI President Sharon Rossie writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.

I remember thinking then about how, if just given the chance to go to an exceptional school, children in low-income communities could grow up to be entrepreneurs and leaders and break the cycle of poverty in their family. I thought about the students with disabilities who could benefit from a variety of services offered outside the public school system, if only their family had the ability to choose those support services. And I thought about the high-achieving students who could reach their full potential if given the opportunity to be challenged in the classroom rather than stuck.

Bringing true school choice to Nevada families has been one of NPRI’s top priorities for much of its 24-year-long history and has long been a personal passion of mine. Like many of you, I closely followed NPRI’s efforts to expand school choice in Nevada closely this past Legislative Session, and I celebrated when I read Gov. Sandoval signed into law SB302 to create the nation’s first near-universal Education Savings Accounts program.

So, when I was approached by NPRI about returning to the Institute, I couldn’t think of a more exciting time to come back. While the challenges presented by a burgeoning government, constant demands to raise taxes, and unsustainable pension and collective bargaining systems are immense, the opportunities for those of us who believe in the value and promise of freedom have never been greater.

I was reminded of that this week when I met some of NPRI’s supporters for the first time and reconnected with old friends in northern Nevada. It was encouraging to see the excitement over the fact that Nevada is leading the nation when it comes to school choice, but I think we’ve only scratched the surface in terms of the impact this program will have on turning people into lovers and defenders of freedom.

We got a taste of that last week, when hundreds of parents showed up to testify at a hearing regarding the regulations of Nevada’s new Education Savings Accounts program. NPRI’s Managing Vice President Steven Miller, who has been covering Nevada politics for two decades, said he’d never seen parents line up along the walls and spill into multiple overflow rooms at a regulatory meeting.

And on Saturday, we saw something similar when over 300 people attended the first of what will be many public events NPRI will hold to share information about how Nevada students are now eligible to receive at least $5,100 a year to be used to fund private school tuition, home-based education, online schooling, tutoring and more.

Parents are tired of having no say in their child’s education and they’re jumping at the chance to have a real choice and a real chance to put their child in an environment in which they can thrive.

In January, my predecessor, Andy Matthews, announced NPRI’s top priority for 2015 was providing solutions to help Nevada students finally get the education they deserve so they can achieve success for a lifetime. The Institute spent much of the Legislative Session advocating for the method we know will accomplish this —Education Savings Accounts — and fortunately for Nevada students, lawmakers agreed.

Now that we have ESAs, the real (and fun) work begins! I’m happy to assure you that furthering educational freedom will continue to be NPRI’s top priority for the foreseeable future because we know that the first step to creating a prosperous Nevada is to give parents the freedom to choose the educational environment that best suits their child.

We’ll soon be announcing new ways we plan to connect with and inform the public, and our citizen engagement coordinator, Karen Gray, is talking to parents and community groups daily about how they can exercise their new choice.

Next Friday — on what would have been the 103rd birthday Milton Friedman, father of the school choice movement — NPRI will host its next public event to provide information on the ESA program. If you’re in Las Vegas, I encourage you to come by our office and learn a little more about what SB302 means for your family and friends. I’d love to meet you for the first time or see you again.

For those of you reading this letter from outside Las Vegas, stay tuned for events in your area, and please feel free to introduce yourself by phone or email. I look forward to meeting new friends though NPRI, reconnecting with old ones, and working with you all to make Nevada a freer and more prosperous state.

I still remember when I wrote my first letter to you as NPRI’s president back in October 2011.

I was stepping into a new role, assuming new responsibilities, and feeling a bit overwhelmed by the challenge of leading what was already a highly successful organization.

But I also remember the energy I felt, as I looked around at the problems facing our state and saw how NPRI could play a crucial role in solving them. And I couldn’t wait for the opportunity to be a leader in that fight.

Today, as I look back at how far we’ve come in the past four years, I’ll admit to feeling a sense of pride. Nevada continues to face its share of problems. No one can deny that. But I also see the enormous impact this Institute has had in advancing freedom and opportunity in our great state.

We’ve helped stop a number of destructive tax increases. We’ve helped thousands of educators free themselves from their teacher unions. And we led the intellectual effort in establishing Nevada as the national leader in the school choice movement. You and I did this together, and hundreds of thousands of Nevadans are better off as a result of our efforts.

Today, I still have every bit as much energy, passion and commitment to our cause as ever. But it’s time for me to fight for our shared principles in a new way.

You may have seen the news in the Las Vegas Review-Journal this morning. If you didn’t, then I’ll share it with you now. I’ve made the very difficult decision to step down as president of the Nevada Policy Research Institute and to run for the United States Congress.

Without question, this is the hardest professional decision I’ve ever made in my life. The four years I’ve served as NPRI’s president, and the eight I’ve been with the Institute in all, have been more enjoyable and rewarding than I could possibly put into words. But I’ve always said that I will do whatever I can to best serve our cause, and I firmly believe that this is the right decision for me to make.

Tomorrow, NPRI will officially announce its transition plan, and while I’m not going to spoil it, I think you’ll be extremely pleased with what we’ll share with you. And I will promise you this: NPRI, under the direction of our outstanding Board of Directors and our talented staff, will continue to be the greatest force for freedom in the Silver State, and will reach even greater heights in the years ahead.

I want to tell you that it has been a true pleasure to get to know so many of you personally over the past few years, and I consider myself blessed to have made so many close friends during my time here. I sincerely hope you’ll stay in touch, and I encourage you to email me at my personal address, andymatthews921@gmail.com.

And now, all that’s left to say is good-bye, and thank you. None of our successes, none of our victories, none of what we have achieved for free markets and individual liberty, would have been possible without your generous support. You are what makes the Nevada Policy Research Institute so strong, so effective, and so special.

And you are the reason why I believe so firmly that our great state has an exceedingly bright future.

Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.

With the establishment of Nevada’s new Education Savings Accounts program, it’s quite possible that Silver State students are the freest in the country.

Once the program goes into effect in January, any student who has been in public school for 100 days will have the opportunity to attend private school, receive a home-based education, be tutored, or experience any number of other individualized education environments using a portion of the money the state already spends to educate him or her.

For the first time ever, parents have a true say in how and where their children are educated, and all children have the opportunity to succeed.

But that freedom doesn’t mean much if parents don’t know they have it.

That’s why, even though Nevada has approved universal ESAs, our work at NPRI is far from over. We have committed ourselves to going beyond making policy recommendations, to making sure parents know the ESA program exists and have all the information they need to use one of the $5,100-plus-per-year grants, if they decide that is the best option for their child.

Over the past few months, one of our long-time staff members, Karen Gray, took on a new role as our citizen engagement coordinator to help us spread the word at a grassroots level and meet parents one-on-one.

Today, she is standing with parents at the Grant Sawyer Building in Las Vegas to help walk them through the process of offering comment to the Nevada Treasurer, who is holding a public meeting to gather input on how the new ESA program should operate.

And tomorrow, we will hold our first informational meeting for parents to let them know about the opportunities created by this program that’s so new to Nevada. Karen will be joined by administrators at Mountain View Christian Schools — the co-host of tomorrow’s event and a Las Vegas private school that is able to accommodate 1,000 new students immediately — and the lawmaker responsible for introducing ESAs to Nevada, Sen. Scott Hammond.

Since announcing tomorrow’s event, we’ve had numerous inquiries into other informational meetings that will be held in Las Vegas, Reno and other parts of our state. While we don’t have those dates yet, we are actively working with schools and community groups to set up more of these meetings, so that every parent who wants to learn about how ESAs can help their child will be able to do so.

As I’ve explained before, ESAs will fundamentally transform the lives of students and the quality of education in our state. These grants are children’s tickets out of failing schools and into exceptional ones that prepare them for a successful life.

It never made sense to me that we’d take students with unique talents and abilities and stick them into a one-size-fits-all classroom and just hope they do well. For decades, Nevada schools have struggled to graduate students with basic English and math skills, yet for decades, defenders of the status quo have given us nothing but the same educational approach that has failed countless students.

Now that we finally have something different — a solution we at NPRI have long advocated for — let’s get out and spread the word so as many students as possible can start receiving the education they deserve.

Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.

This week, we saw two very opposite sides of government: the side that values individual rights above the power of the state, and the side that thinks government power trumps any freedoms the people ostensibly have.

It started out on a good note. On Monday, Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt held a press conference to announce his office had filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court of the United States in support of our lawsuit on behalf of Victor Fuentes and his church, Ministerio Roca Solida (Solid Rock Church).

The attorney general noted the irony of Pastor Fuentes swimming from Santiago, Cuba, to Guantanamo Bay to escape oppression by an unaccountable government, only to come to Nevada to have the federal government take his vested water rights utilizing a diversion dam to reroute a stream off his land — a stream which has traversed that property since as early as 1881. Adding insult to injury, months after the diversion, the very water taken from the church was returned by way of floodwater when a Christmas eve rainfall caused the water rerouted by U.S. Fish and Wildlife to jump its newly and negligently constructed channel, resulting in significant damage to the church camp’s buildings.

Specifically, Laxalt is supporting our effort to have the Supreme Court overrule a lower court decision that, relying on some statutory oddities, found that Victor cannot seek remedy for the multiple rights violations he has endured. Instead, he must choose among them ─ which would of course prevent him from truly being made whole.

But Laxalt also spoke more broadly, and quite passionately, about some of the principles we value most at NPRI: individual liberty, property rights and the freedom to pursue the American Dream.

What happened to Victor is heartbreaking and infuriating. But it was encouraging to see the attorney general take a principled stand in behalf of individual rights.

Unfortunately, the very next day brought something quite different.

In U.S. District Court on Tuesday, U.S. attorneys representing the United States Fish and Wildlife Service argued that the government has complete discretion to flood a person’s property without any legal recourse in negligence.

Yes, you read that right.

Despite having caused nearly $90,000 worth of damage to private property by building a waterway that ­─ by the government’s own admission ─ could only sustain spring flow (and no rainwater flow), the federal government is actually trying to convince a judge that because it allegedly had discretion to reroute the waterway off private property in the first place, it cannot be held liable for any negligent acts it commits in carrying out that action.

In other words, the government believes that so long as it has the discretion to do X, it can’t be held responsible for how it does X ─ even if how it does X results in massive damage and destruction to neighboring private property.

It would follow, then, that if the judge sides with the federal government, agencies would be allowed to haphazardly conduct business with free rein to completely disregard the effects their negligent actions might have on the people they’re supposed to serve.

Really makes you eager to drive over a government-constructed bridge, doesn’t it?

The contrast between what Adam Laxalt said on Monday and what the federal government tried to pull on Tuesday could not be starker.

And it served as a useful reminder. There are indeed good and honorable people in public life who are willing to do the right thing. But there will always be those who will try to avoid accountability, and who will need to be confronted by liberty-loving citizens like you and me.

Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.

I’ve had unions on the brain quite a bit lately, and understandably so.

For starters, Wednesday marked the beginning of the teacher union opt-out period for most of Nevada’s counties. From July 1-15, public school teachers belonging to Nevada State Education Association affiliates can choose to save hundreds of dollars a year (currently taken from them in the form of union dues) by walking away from their union.

As you’re probably aware, for the past several years we at NPRI have been working to let teachers know that they have this right. Many make the mistake of assuming that they have to belong to the union in order to teach in Nevada. The truth is that Nevada is a right-to-work state, which means no such requirement exists. And we’re making sure teachers know it.

In recent days, we started reaching out to teachers to alert them that the opt-out window is upon us. Most of the response, as usual, has been positive. But there are of course those few union fans who aren’t quite as grateful to hear from us.

In previous years, I’ve had the pleasure of hearing from some of the latter, who haven’t been shy about directing their fury toward my email inbox. Thankfully, this year it’s NPRI’s Chantal Lovell who’s bearing the brunt of the anger, though she’s shared a few of her favorite responses with me ─ most of which are not suitable for print in this space. But this one pretty much summed it up (and yes, the ALL CAPS were in the original):

ALL YOU ARE DOING IS TRYING TO BREAK UP UNIONS, NOT TRYING TO HELP TEACHERS!

What’s interesting, of course, is that those who are lashing out at us for informing teachers of their rights are, in a sense, proving our point. They personally like the union, and they’re exercising their choice to remain in it. No one, not even NPRI, is trying to stop them. And they are perfectly free to ignore our message.

But what about their colleagues who don’t share their affinity for union membership? Shouldn’t they be trusted to make their own decision as well? We certainly think so, and it’s telling that these union backers, who are perfectly within their right to remain in the union, are afraid of letting their co-workers know they have that choice.

There was some other interesting union-related news this week, from outside of Nevada’s borders. We Nevadans are fortunate to live in a right-to-work state, but not everyone can say the same, and that includes the neighboring state of California.

But the U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to take up a case, which originated in the Golden State, that could deal a serious blow to the coercive powers that public-sector unions still enjoy in many places. The L.A. Times reports that:

At issue is the court’s 1977 precedent in Abood vs. Detroit Board of Education, which today allows government worker unions in California and 20 other states to collect “fair share” fees to cover the costs of collective bargaining, even from employees who do not join or support the union.

Though the high court has said workers cannot be required to pay for a union’s political activities, it has concluded that they should contribute something toward a union’s cost of negotiating better wages and benefits for everyone.

The lead plaintiff in the case is Rebecca Friedrichs, a teacher in Orange County who along with a group of her colleagues is challenging the assessment of union fees against non-union members. Should she prevail, it would mark a huge victory for worker freedom that will be felt from coast to coast.

We’ll be watching this story closely, naturally, and here’s hoping that the day will soon arrive when workers nationwide are able to exercise the same rights as here in Nevada.

And in the meantime, we’ll continue to make sure that those who are in Nevada and want to leave their union have the information they need to do exactly that.

Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.

I must say, Nevada’s teacher union honchos have disappointed me this time.

That’s a video produced by the Nevada State Education Association, featuring NPRI’s Victor Joecks testifying on the serial failure of education spending hikes to improve student achievement.

You really need to watch it for yourself. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Weird, isn’t it? The video’s got just about everything one would expect from the union marketing machine. There’s the ominous music. The on-screen words introducing us to their bogeyman du jour. The video ─ eerily out of focus, naturally ─ of said bogeyman saying something antithetical to union dogma.

Cue the record-scratching sound effect. The replay of the terrifying sound bite. More on-screen text expressing shock and disbelief over the words that just came from the villain’s mouth.

And then…

Wait, nothing?

Well I’ll be…

I can only assume that, like me, you were left with a good deal of confusion when that video ended simply and abruptly by flashing a web address on the screen. It seems the PR team over in union land, in their rush to convict Victor for his hate speech, forgot to include something rather important ─ an argument.

Overcome with curiosity, I typed in the web address that the video had provided, thinking that maybe there I would find some sort of rebuttal, analysis or at the very least an anecdote or two that might seek to contradict Victor’s words. But still, nothing.

Even stranger is that a local affiliate of the union apparently posted that video on social media this week for all ─ including its own membership ─ to see. What this means is that thousands of teachers around the state received a powerful message that we at NPRI have been working hard for years to share with them ourselves ─ that more spending won’t improve our education system. And it was the teacher union itself that helped us get that message out, while letting our point go completely unchallenged.

I’m not sure how to respond, other than to say … thank you?

Perhaps the video’s creators thought Victor’s statement was so absurd on its face, so self-damning and certain to be greeted as such by the masses, that it didn’t require any response. If that’s what they think, then they haven’t been paying attention.

Remember the margin tax ballot initiative? That was a teacher union-backed effort predicated on the claim that Nevada’s poor educational performance was the result of insufficient spending. We at NPRI pointed out that the numbers tell a different story, as the past two decades have seen Nevada nearly double public education spending on a per-pupil, inflation-adjusted basis, without any increase in student achievement. Who won that debate? A full seventy-nine percent of voters rejected the margin tax at the polls.

What’s more, the evidence is mounting that even the union’s own members aren’t buying what the brass is selling. NPRI’s union opt-out awareness campaign has helped lead to more than 2,000 teachers and support staffers quitting their union altogether over the past three years, and hundreds more are no doubt getting ready to do the same in just a few days. What does it say about your organization that maintaining healthy membership numbers depends largely on tricking people into believing they have no choice but to belong?

Whether or not its leaders realize it, the teacher union’s credibility is shot. If they genuinely believe that public opinion is so favorably disposed toward their cause that they don’t even have to bother making the arguments to support it, then they are bathing in a pool of self-delusion from which they’re unlikely ever to emerge.

Frankly, I find it difficult to believe that their lack of awareness really is that complete. So I would expect them to feel compelled to offer at least something ─ anything ─ in that video to try to disprove Victor’s point. But they didn’t, and so we’re left with only one logical explanation as to why.

Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.

Nearly 200 NPRI supporters gathered at the Eldorado in Reno on Wednesday night for our fourth annual Spring Celebration. We were there, of course, to celebrate the Institute’s achievements over the past year, but also to commit ourselves to the important work that lies ahead.

And boy, is there a lot to do.

Our keynote speaker was Dr. Yuri Maltsev, a former economic advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev and now a professor at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Dr. Maltsev was part of the team that developed Gorbachev’s policy of perestroika, the term for the package of political and economic reforms implemented in the waning years of the Soviet Union.

Lots of people have sounded the alarm over the continuing slide into statism we’re experiencing here in the United States. But I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone issue that warning as incisively or with as much credibility as Dr. Maltsev did on Wednesday.

This is a man who saw first-hand the horrors that are unleashed when government is left unrestrained, and when the supposed good of the “collective” is elevated above the rights of the individual. Fortunately for Dr. Maltsev, he was able to defect to the U.S. from the Soviet Union in 1989 and leave those horrors behind him.

Or so he thought.

What Dr. Maltsev has observed, especially in recent years, is America’s slow but steady abandonment of the principles that inspired our nation’s founding, and our increasing acceptance of the kinds of government policies that have destroyed so many societies around the world.

His remarks on Wednesday night were meant as a wake-up call to those of us who love liberty and appreciate its unique power to foster prosperity and opportunity: We are letting it slip away.

The good news, according to Dr. Maltsev, is that it’s not too late. As far as we’ve drifted from our nation’s bedrock principles, we’ve not yet reached the point of no return. His warning, then, can also be seen as something else ─ a challenge to all of us to engage and win this crucial battle for our country’s future.

To those of you who joined us in Reno on Wednesday night, thank you for taking the time to hear that important message.

And to all of you, thank you for all you do to fight for the principles that made America the greatest country the world has ever known.

Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.

If you’re in Las Vegas, a glimmer of freedom may have caught your eye as you drove to work this morning.

Our latest billboard campaign — aimed at informing teachers and support staff or their rights — began yesterday and marked the start of our annual teacher union opt-out campaign. For the fourth year in a row, NPRI is reaching out to educators across the State of Nevada to make sure they know union membership is a choice and that, from July 1 to July 15, they may leave their union if they desire by submitting written notice to their union and, in some areas, their school district.

The billboards highlight one of the major benefits of dropping union membership — the ability to save hundreds of dollars a year in dues — but there are many other reasons teachers and support staff employees have been abandoning their local affiliates of the Nevada State Education Association.

While the billboards are certainly the most visible part of our efforts in Southern Nevada, they’re far from the only piece of the plan. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be communicating directly with teachers across the state through email and media coverage to inform them of this short, ill-timed opt-out window and some of the reasons educators have chosen to leave.

For many, the decision to leave the union was simple: They didn’t like the idea of financially supporting an organization that uses their money to work against them. For example, the NSEA and its local affiliates spent millions of dollars last year funding the failed margin tax campaign, which 79 percent of voters — presumably many of them teachers and support staff — voted against.

The union also funds groups that work to increase the availability of abortions and expand same-sex marriage legalization. While NPRI does not take a position on either issue, it’s safe to say teachers have strong feelings about these controversial issues and many would not support these groups financially if given the choice.

Others don’t like the idea of union bosses getting rich on their backs, or find the union unresponsive and, ultimately, unnecessary. And then there are the many educators who realize that the union’s promise of liability insurance isn’t such a bargain when private associations, like the Association of American Educators, offer twice the amount of insurance for a mere fraction of the price.

The list goes on and on, but what all the reasons boil down to is the understanding and belief that individuals can make better decisions about their lives and finances than a union or school district can. Union membership is voluntary, and we believe teachers and support staff deserve to have all the information needed to make this important decision for themselves and their families.

So if you know a teacher or support staff member, do that a person a favor and let him or her know there’s a choice when it comes to union membership. Encourage anyone who may be interested to visit NevadaTeacherFreedom.com to find out how to save money and gain freedom this summer.

Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.

In the days immediately following the November elections, NPRI published a series of articles on how Republicans could succeed in the 78th Legislative Session where Democrats have failed in past years.

The first installment laid out what we thought to be the most important opportunity that, if seized by the newly elected Republicans, would constitute the greatest step forward Nevada has taken in memory: reform education by enacting school choice.

And reform they did.

Tuesday afternoon, Gov. Brian Sandoval followed the lead of legislators and signed into law Senate Bill 302, creating the nation’s first universal Educational Savings Accounts program. Not only did Nevada make history through its ESA bill, it also, with the creation of the tuition tax credit scholarship program in April, became the first state to pass two pieces of school choice legislation in a single session.

By any measure, Nevada kids were the big winners of the 78th Legislative Session.

As I said in a statement following the governor’s signing of SB302, Education Savings Accounts will fundamentally transform the lives and futures of Nevada’s children.

For the first time ever, children who are struggling in public schools now have the opportunity to succeed in an educational environment that is tailored to their unique abilities and needs. Kids who have longed to be challenged in a more rigorous environment now have the chance to flourish in private, online or other alternative types of schools. Families who never before could afford private education will now be able to give their child what they know is best.

Through the ESA program, parents will be able to receive a portion of the public funds allocated to their child into a savings account. The amount available will generally range from $5,100 to $5,600 per year, with parents able to use those funds to pay for private school, online learning programs, tutoring, parented-coordinated education and even transportation. Under this program, parents, not government bureaucrats, will be allowed to follow the educational path they understand is right for their child.

And the benefits of this new program won’t be limited to the children whose families take advantage of it. Opponents claim that school choice programs such as Education Savings Accounts take money away from the public school system, thereby hurting traditional schools. But those people ignore the empirical evidence which has shown the exact opposite. By giving parents more options and creating a climate of competition, school choice forces public schools to do something they’ve never really been pressured to do: improve.

Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that school choice opponents — including the typical big-government types like teacher unions and administrators — call Nevada’s Education Savings Accounts program “the first step toward dismantling the nation’s public schools.” This is obviously an attempted scare tactic, but it does invite a question: If public schools continue to fail to provide a quality education with the ample tax dollars they’ve been given, then what good does it do for those schools to remain open? Some may indeed close, and in their places will emerge schools that thrive on the challenge to innovate and are more concerned with improving the lives of children than preserving the status quo.

Prior to the Legislative Session, NPRI committed to doing everything within its power to ensure the ESA idea became a reality. Now that we’ve succeeded, thanks in large part to the courage of Sen. Scott Hammond, who introduced this legislation, we are committing the Institute to ensuring all Nevada parents have the knowledge and tools available to give their child the gift of ESAs.

Our citizen engagement coordinator, Karen Gray, has already begun meeting with parents to teach them about these ESAs — which are only available in four other states, by the way — and help walk them through the process of researching possible schools for their children to attend. Over the next few months, you’ll see these efforts ramp up and become more publicized, but in the meantime, if you know of Nevada families that could benefit from this new opportunity, please reach out to Karen at kg@npri.org.

The creation of Education Savings Accounts is a huge victory, not just for liberty lovers, but for anyone who desires to see Nevada’s children succeed in school. Now that we’ve overcome the hurdle of establishing this program, it’s time to spread the word and ensure that it’s not just the nation’s most expansive school choice program, but also the best.